


Timeout

by JoJo



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: fan_flashworks, Gen, Post-Episode: s07e25 Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono (Life of Land Perpetuated in Righteousness)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: OK, so Grace is minding Charlie, but she can think of a whole bunch of things she'd rather be doing than playing games with a little kid





	Timeout

**Author's Note:**

> based on the scene at HQ between Charlie, Danny, and Steve, at the beginning of 7.25, for the fan_flashworks theme 'Office'

“What,” Grace said, resentful. “What even is this?”

When minding your little brother, Rachel had said, never - but neverrrr - leave him amusing himself on his own out of sight for too long. And if he’s super quiet, for God’s sake go see what he’s up to.

Yeah, so thanks for that, Mom.

Grace was fine checking he was okay, but seriously, did Mom think she was actually going to _play_ stuff with him? Like, crawl around on the carpet amongst all this mess? Never mind the contents of his toy chest, it looked as if he had half the kitchen cupboards spread around him as well.

Why would she spend time on dumb little-kid things when there was her eyebrows. And Netflix.

Charlie looked up at her from his crossed-leg pose on the carpet. He knew what she was thinking, and frowned. 

“You can’t see it I can’t help you,” he said in response to her question. It was actually a direct quote from her back catalog and she wondered, impatient, when Charlie had gotten so like Danno.

“You took my stuff,” she accused, not really mad but feeling as if she should be.

Her long-discarded Cali Girl Barbie was sitting, in sparkly shorts, inside a square ice-cream carton on its side. Cali Guy, kinda naked, was in a neighboring one. Between the cartons was a shiny blue wine-glass coaster.

Charlie shrugged, turned away from her, busy. Just across the carpet under the overhang of his quilt, he carefully arranged three Hotwheels cars and a lurid take-a-part motorcycle toy into a neat line. Next to them was a heaped pile of little green army men.

It was Grace’s turn to frown. Mainly because, in spite of herself, her interest was piqued.

“No really, Charlie, what is this?”

He didn’t look up again. “You know,” he said, stroking the coaster with one finger. 

“Huh.” Grace came further into his room.

Parked cars, people in boxes, shiny floors, army men on stand-by. 

Yeah, she knew.

She pointed at him. “That Danno?”

In one fist Charlie was gripping a yellow-haired Lego mini figure, whose tiny size in comparison to the Cali Girl and Cali Guy was kind of hilarious. Charlie looked at her and grinned. He knew it was funny, too. One by one he picked up an aluminum tray, a ziploc box, and a cheese grater, showed her, put them back.

“The magic table. The lockbox. The vending machine.”

Grace made an impressed face. Her newly black-polished fingernail indicated a box with a clear plastic front. In the far corner was one of Charlie’s special forces guys from his birthday Battlepack. The box was firmly closed.

“Timeout,” Charlie explained.

“Oh God.” Grace had caught on, her glee sudden and warming. “What did he do this time, and when did you go to Dad’s office?”

“The day Mom was at the D-I-V-O-R-C-E lawyer,” Charlie said, nonchalant. “The day Uncle Steve jumped off the bridge.”

Ouch. 

“That why he’s in timeout?”

“He’s a bad boy,” Charlie agreed, full of admiration.

Grace wondered when his delight at the fact that Danno was a superhero and Uncle Steve was a nut job would turn to abject terror every time they were out of his sight. 

“Uncle Steve is going to play this with me when he comes,” Charlie went on, and Grace felt a sudden stab of panic, making herself count to five before she spoke.

“Well, Uncle Steve’s not feeling so good at the moment,” she said carefully. “I don’t think he’ll be up to playing, not for a day or two.”

She didn’t know why this was so. Just that Uncle Steve had been throwing up a lot, that it might be serious, and that Danno was pretending not to be beside himself with worry. Which was not something Charlie needed to know one tiny thing about.

His face had fallen at the news.

“Hey, let’s give them a reason to let Uncle Steve out the box,” Grace said quickly.

Charlie’s face lit up again, instant. “Do they need the army men?”

“They will,” Grace said. “Because you know they’re gonna catch a big case.”

“Cool,” Charlie said, rocking up on to his knees. He set the mini Danno down to stride across the coaster, towards the closed, plastic-fronted box where Uncle Steve was incarcerated. Then he gave Grace a suspicious look. “Are you playing this with me?”

Grace thought of all the other, way more interesting, things she had to do. And how this was going to ruin her fingernails.

She sighed a little, but, “Long as I can be Auntie Kono,” she said, and dropped right down into the mess.


End file.
